Community and Utopia in Crevecoeur's Sketches

Abstract

ID Y end of eighteenth century, Leo Marx tells us, U idea that the American continent may be site of a new golden age could be taken seriously in politics.' Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer is perhaps best articulation of this utopian impulse, embodying in its third letter an agrarian version of American dream. There he presents a vision of a society of social and economic equals, made independent through their economic dependence on land alone yet bound together in a supportive and compassionate community. The agrarian values that James embodies in book's opening -familial rootedness, reverence for nature, diligent work, economic egalitarianism, and an openness to those in need-are utopian in essence. They project an ideal society, image of which becomes a stance for social criticism.2 Although Crevecoeur's presentation of dream has only a peripheral relation to historical truth, something of utopian impulse of work has survived history, continuing to present a powerful image of what America might have become before it veered into Industrial Age. The power of Crevecoeur's book is its utopian thrust, and as historical developments have rendered it more assuredly utopian, they have augmented very source of its power. But what call can Crevecoeur's agrarian utopia legitimately have upon us? This essentially political question has been unacknowledged subtext of much conflicting literary interpreta-